AI and robots in Higher Education: Eight design fictions

Eight design fictions that imagine the application of AI and robots to Higher Education (HE).Based on a wide ranging literature review, the fictions instantiate the possibilities and controversies around AI and robots as applied in the university context, including teaching, administration and research.The methods used to design this version of the fictions are described in the paper "The development of a collection of design fictions about Artificial Intelligence and robots in Higher Education" (https://doi.org/10.35542/osf.io/s2jc8) Design fictions create a speculative space in which to raise questions about whether a particular technology is desirable, the socio-cultural assumptions built into technologies, the potential for different technologies to make different worlds, our relation to technology in general, indeed our role in making the future happen in general. They can be used in research or teaching to elicit opinions about the future application of AI and robots to HE.Fiction 1: AIDan, the teaching assistantFiction 2: FootbotballFiction 3: CriticalBot in conversationFiction 4: The intelligent campus appFiction 5: Research Management Suite TMFiction 6: Verbatim minutes of University AI project steering committee: AI implementation phase 3Fiction 7: DashboardsFiction 8: Minnie, the AI admin assistantThe project was funded by Society of Research into Higher Education - Research Scoping Award -SA1906. As such the fictions are the property of SRHE and deposited here by permission.The research was approved by the University of Sheffield, Information School under ethics application 032657